Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c6.s3.t3.13

c6.s3.t3.13

1. The homological character of the skeletal structure is too conspicuous in the four extremities to have escaped the notice of Ātreya-Charaka. But that he did not fully realize it, is shown, *inter alia*, by his treatment of the cranial bones, as compared with that of Suśruta (see §§ 28, 63). It was the latter who first recognized that the homological principle dominated the whole structure, and who explicitly used it as the basis of his classificatory list of the bones. This is shown, e. g., by his distribution of the ribs into two sets of 36 bones each (§ 27), and by his hemisection of the vertebral column and of the frontal and other bones of the head (§§ 44, 59, 63). In one point, however, viz. the ascription of three bones to each digit (p. 73), Suśruta pressed the homological principle too far; see § 47. Vāgbhaṭa I adopted that principle from Suśruta, but pressed it one point farther, extending it, still more erroneously (at least, in the sense in which he applied it) to the heels, of which he counted four, ascribing heels to the two hands as well as to the two feet.